‘There was no use googling am I cursed because the search engine algorithm would always say yes.’

Olivia was named after a lycra-clad singer her parents saw on Rage. As a child, she lost the ability to speak and spent a year barking like a dog. Her Gong Gong bought her a yellow bird in a shoebox from the Adelaide Central Markets. Her heart was broken by a guitar teacher after a school disco. She started university and learnt to run and travelled to Guangzhou for her cousin’s wedding. 

In her brutally funny, genre-defying debut, Olivia De Zilva collects stories on shelves: neat coming-of-age anecdotes and sitcom characters trapped behind glass. 

Then she breaks it all apart. 

Plastic Budgie questions how our memories and families form us, in a way that is both unapologetically sentimental and eternally surprising. It is full of itchy Y2K nostalgia, curses and glimpses of birds.

'De Zilva’s writing is laced with dark wit and is emotionally devastating in equal measure; she has a voice that is bold, bright and steeped in complicated nostalgia ... De Zilva’s humour and unflinching honesty make the book compulsively readable, perfect for anyone who grew up feeling a little out of place.' – Books+Publishing

'A searching and companionable coming-of-age story that combines vulnerability and restraint, directness and discretion. Olivia De Zilva writes about loneliness and disruption with great humour and sensitivity.' – Shannon Burns

'De Zilva is a marvellous writer, effortlessly funny and yet able to pull off heartrending and meaningful scenes. Definitely a talent to watch.' – Matthew Hooton

Olivia De Zilva is a writer based on Kaurna Yerta/Adelaide, Australia. She has been awarded and shortlisted for prizes including the Deakin University Non-Fiction Prize, the Kat Muscat Fellowship and the Richell Prize for Emerging Writers. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Westerly, Liminal, SBS, Cordite Poetry Review, Mascara Literary Review and Australian Poetry Journal, among others. Olivia graduated with a Master of Philosophy from the University of Queensland; her thesis explored the representation of Asian-diasporic identity in contemporary Australian publishing.

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